Table Of ContentLate German Idealism
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Late German
Idealism
Trendelenburg and Lotze
Frederick C. Beiser
1
3
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In memoriam:
Anton, Augustus, Andreas and Nickolaus Beiser, who all fell at
CHICKAMAUGA, SEPTEMBER 19-20, 1863.
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Preface
Recent studies of the history of German philosophy in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries keep stumbling against two neglected fi gures: Hermann Lotze
and Adolf Trendelenburg. Though their importance and infl uence has been generally
recognized, little work has been done on them in the past half century. The aim of the
present book is to rectify this defi ciency and to give the Anglophone reader a general
introduction to the life and philosophy of two of the most important and neglected
philosophers of the nineteenth century. My ultimate hope is that this work will set the
general context for a future study of these philosophers and their legacy.
This study is part of a more general effort to broaden our horizons in the study
of German idealism. Hitherto these horizons have been narrowly and tendentiously
defi ned by Hegel, who saw the idealist tradition as a movement beginning with Kant,
proceeding through Fichte and Schelling, and then culminating in himself. Since most
scholars have accepted the Hegelian defi nition, they have not only ignored idealism
after Hegel, but they have also neglected competing movements within the idealist
tradition. While the present book considers idealism after Hegel, and while a previous
book (G erman Idealism, Harvard 2002) treated the role of the early romantics within
the idealist tradition, a future work will examine the psychologistic tradition of Fries,
Herbart and Beneke, which was the competing idealist movement to that of Fichte,
Schelling and Hegel.
This book can be at best only the beginning of a study of the Lotze-Trendelenburg
legacy. These two late idealists were an important infl uence on most of the leading
philosophers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While in some cases
I have tried to indicate what that infl uence might be, I have not been able to inves-
tigate it in any detail. Exactly what infl uence Trendelenburg and Lotze had on par-
ticular fi gures is the subject for more specifi c studies which I cannot pursue in a
general introduction. I have had little to say, therefore, about Trendelenburg’s infl uence
on Dilthey, Brentano, and Kierkegaard, about Lotze’s infl uence on Husserl and neo-
Kantianism, and about the fraught question of Lotze’s infl uence on Frege.
As a recent guest at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, Canada, I had
the opportunity to examine Winthrop Pickard Bell’s manuscript notes on Husserl’s
1912 lectures on Lotze’s logic. Though these notes make clear Lotze’s importance for
Husserl, I have not, because of the general constraints of this work, been able to make
use of them.
The study of Lotze and Trendelenburg is very much in its infancy. Apart from a few
monographs and dissertations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, lit-
tle has been written about them. Recently, though, there have been promising signs of
viii PREFACE
a revival. In the case of Trendelenburg, there has been the important chapter devoted
to him in Klaus Christian Köhnke’s E ntstehung und Aufstieg des Neukantianismus
(Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1986), 23–57, and the new anthology of essays edited by
Köhnke and Gerhard Hartung, Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburgs Wirkung (Eutin: Eutiner
Landesbibliothek, 2006). In the case of Lotze, a great step forward was made in 2003
with the publication of Reinhard Pester’s collection of letters and documents, H ermann
Lotze, Briefe und Dokumente (Würzburg, Königshausen und Neumann). This work, and
Pester’s own monograph (H ermann Lotze, Königshausen und Neumann, 1997), has set
the foundation for future Lotze research. My own work, as should be apparent from
its many footnotes, is greatly indebted to all these studies.
Working on Trendelenburg and Lotze has been a rewarding but also lonely task.
I am grateful for the encouragement of several individuals: Michael Morgan, Daniel
Dahlstrom, Reinier Munk, Sebastian Luft, Kris McDaniel, Allen Wood, and Jason Bell.
Syracuse, New York
September 2012
Contents
Introduction: Idealism After Hegel 1
1. Refi guring Idealism 1
2. Preserving and Reforming a Tradition 2
3. Personal Relations and the Absence Thereof 5
Part I. Trendelenburg 9
1. Place in History 11
The Shrouded Colossus 11
2. Early Years (1802-1840) 16
1. Bildungsjahre 16
2. The Young Professor 23
3. Logic and Metaphysics 28
1. A Philosophical Revolution 28
2. The Organic Worldview 32
3. The Metaphysics of Motion 38
4. Defense of Teleology 46
5. Idealism and Realism 55
6. Critique of Hegel 59
4. Ethical and Political Theory 69
1. Turn to Politics 69
2. Foundation of Law and Morality 75
3. Theory of the State 87
5. Aesthetics, Religion, and Pedagogics 95
1. Aesthetics 95
2. The Religious Dimension 99
3. Trendelenburg as Educator 102
6. Controversy over Kant 107
1. An Infamous Dispute 107
2. Origins and Context 109
3. The Dispute Thickens 114
4. The Curtain Falls, Finally 118
